This is a letter that IJM (International Justice Ministry) sent to me, as one of the 21,000 co-signers, as a follow up to the petition that IJM members sent to President Barak Obama, calling for the eradication of modern day slavery. By joining organizations such as IJM and the NotForSale campaign, you too can make a difference.

Dear Carlos,

Thank you for joining with IJM and calling on President Obama to make the eradication of modern-day slavery a priority for his Administration. Last week, I had the honor of delivering our letter – signed by you and nearly 21,000 other modern-day abolitionists! – to Gayle Smith, Special Assistant to President Obama and Senior Director at the National Security Council. Ms. Smith is responsible for global development and

humanitarian assistance issues for the Obama Administration, and has been a leading voice on foreign aid reform. I talked with her about how we can secure more resources for combating slavery around the world, especially in the context of proposed deep cuts in U.S. foreign aid.

Ms. Smith told me, “It is amazing that when there’s so much going on in our own country,21,000 Americans want the President to know that they care about trafficking victims abroad.” She said that the strong bipartisan support around the country is very important to confronting slavery.

Your help does make a difference. Thanks in part to those of you who supported this effort last year, the President requested an increase of $400,000 more for the Trafficking in Persons office in 2012 over his request for the previous year. Having been active in the human rights field for twenty-five years, I am increasingly aware that building the political will to protect the most vulnerable among us requires an active constituency of people who care enough to speak up to those in power. Thank you for raising your voice on behalf of children, women and men who are living in bondage. IJM greatly appreciates your partnership in this work.

It is now two am. I have only been able to sleep for a couple of hours.

Like I said in an earlier post to twitter, I am feeling restless. The persistent thought that the city of Houston is the number one city in this country when it comes to slave trafficking keeps steeling my sleep. The orange color of abolition that runs through my veins is boiling. The thought that things are about to get worst by the beginning of April, with the arrival of the Final Four to this city, increases my shame. The thought that the media and our city government has not brought this to the public’s attention just totally blows my mind.

The thought that we were all filled with indignation when were were called the ” fattest city in the nation”, but only manage to briefly hold our breath and shake our heads when we find out the one out every five slaves in this country is trafficked through Houston stands like a scream of irrationality and immorality. The thought that minors are charged with prostitution defies my logic all together. The thought that we find ‘bad hair days’ more fascinating and important than human lives, more important than broken children’s lives is one that crashes against all that I believe in.

Where is our sense of humanity, city of Houston, when we care more about athletes and sporting events so much that we sweep into the shadows and the darkness the lives of children that get taken at 11 years of age, and broken on an daily basis to satisfy what can not be described without the need to vomit, and without outrage, by anyone with an ounce of decency? What about the thousands of children and women to whom this will happen over and over again while people scream and high-five because someone just scored two more points?

What do we need to know to raise up as a city and say “We will be known as the City of Freedom” ?